A DAY OF SHADOW CAMPAIGNING FOR CARPER AND TING

No one is campaigning seriously yet, not with the
voters clinging to the myth that electioneering should
wait until Labor Day, but the candidates are not exactly
dormant, either.

There are ways they can nudge themselves into the
voters' attention, even in the doldrums of winter with
Washington's Birthday still a day away, and one of the
easiest is public appearances that correspond
conveniently with their day jobs.

It was evident Tuesday, when it was possible to catch
up with U.S. Sen. Thomas R. Carper, the Democrat up for
re-election this year, and also with Jan C. Ting, the
Republican expected to be the nominee against him.

Carper and Ting have yet to engage -- "I don't really
know him," Carper said -- and Ting still has to dispatch
Michael D. Protack, a persistent Republican gadfly who
also wants to run, but they spent the morning in a
shadow campaign of what is to come.

Carper and Ting talked policy and politics, each one
playing to his own strength, although strength is
relative when the incumbent has won more statewide
elections than anyone else in Delaware history and the
challenger is a curiosity to all but Republican
insiders.

Carper was in Newark. He was in his element --
talking about trains, one of his favorite things, during
a regional forum at the University of Delaware on rail
transportation and then showboating a little by buying
Girl Scout cookies across town at the local Girl Scout
headquarters.

Ting was on the radio. He was in his element, too --
as a Temple University law professor invited to talk
about immigration, his specialty, on "Radio Times,"
broadcast on WHYY-FM in Philadelphia.

If anybody would be out campaigning now, it would be
Carper. He campaigns the way U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden
Jr., his fellow Democrat, talks. Compulsively.

In front of about 75 people, Carper used his
trademark blend of the modesty and horn-blowing that has
carried him through 11 statewide victories as a
three-term treasurer, five-term congressman, two-term
governor and one-term senator.

As Carper discussed passenger and freight rail, he
joked that his listeners might be able to see Beth
Osborne, his policy adviser on transportation, move her
lips (as though she were the ventriloquist and he the
dummy), but when the moderator noted that Carper's
biography was part of the information packets, he
blurted wittily, "Could you read it aloud?"

Carper, who served on the Amtrak board from 1994 to
1998 while he was governor, was as much of a true
believer as his listeners. Carper is not folksy -- Joe
Biden is folksy -- but he gets there when he talks about
trains. They are a fond memory from his childhood when
he visited his grandparents in rural West Virginia,
where he was born, and they lived beside some railroad
tracks and the occasional train was a highlight in a
youngster's day.

As a senator, Carper is a key advocate for more
federal funding for rail service. Beyond his childhood
nostalgia, he believes it can relieve congestion on the
highways and airways -- recent flights to Chicago had
him agreeing with fellow flyers who called their airline
"Northworst" -- and also alleviate dependence on foreign
oil.

"To move one ton of freight by rail from Washington,
D.C., to Boston, Mass., takes one gallon of diesel fuel.
I rest my case," Carper said.

Carper suggested the rail system could use a
president from the Northeast -- pick a party, any party
-- to replace the Texas oilman in the White House now.
"When Joe Biden is president, or Hillary Clinton or
George Pataki or Mitt Romney, it will be a new day for
passenger rail," he said. "If John McCain winds up as
president, we're in trouble."

After the forum, Carper drove across Newark for a
public purchase of Girl Scout cookies. This was not
surprising, not from someone who once put out a press
release before he donated blood, and these cookies were
not just any cookies.

These cookies were for a Good Cause, just the thing
for a politician who has mastered how to do well by
doing good. These cookies were being sold by some
Brownies for "Operation Taste of Home," sending Girl
Scout cookies to military troops overseas. Carper bought
a case for $42 after an earnest discussion with six
Brownies, all second graders, about the mission.

"The idea is for someone to buy a box or a couple of
boxes of cookies, but they don't eat them?" he said. "I
used to be in the Navy during the Vietnam War, but we
never got cookies."

As Carper handed the Brownies a check, Jan Ting was
coming on the radio. A hard-liner on immigration, Ting
was there to joust with a Princeton professor who favors
more of a porous border. It was a highbrow program with
none of the common touch of cookies.

Unlike Carper, who naturally is expected to mix his
political role in policy discussions, Ting was
introduced as a professor and former immigration
official and had to drag in his political interests
himself. He did it, too, making a point to say that
immigration policy was "one of the reasons I just
declared my candidacy for the U.S. Senate in the state
of Delaware."

Ting wants to build a border fence as a matter of
security to keep out Al Qaeda operatives. He is
skeptical of amnesty programs for illegal immigrants --
"it is really making fools of the people waiting to come
in" -- and he has no sympathy for employers who keep
their labor costs down by exploiting workers who
smuggled themselves into the country.

"The reality is our borders are out of control," Ting
said. "Once we gain control of our border, then we can
have a sensible discussion on what our immigration
policy should be . . . and what makes the most economic
sense for the United States."

It was clear Ting was comfortable in the public
arena. It also was clear he was as willing to part
company with his party's president on immigration as
Carper was on rail policy. Ting does not share the Texas
interest in guest workers, believing such a policy would
undermine national security and excuse Mexico from
developing its own economy, instead of exporting its
problems.

"I think President Bush is under the illusion that he
has a special relationship with Mexico," Ting said.

The radio program lasted an hour. There were no Girl
Scout cookie sales afterwards to prolong Ting's presence
in public, not in the political wasteland of winter,
although his time will come.